Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 17 July 1987:
Vol. 237. no. 4812, pp. 276 - 278
DOI: 10.1126/science.237.4812.276
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Bedform Alignment in Directionally Varying Flows

DAVID M. RUBIN 1 and RALPH E. HUNTER 1

1 U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025.

Many kinds of sediment bedforms are presumed to trend either normal or parallel to the direction of sediment transport. For this reason, the trend of bedforms observed by remote sensing or by field observations is commonly used as an indicator of the direction of sediment transport. Such presumptions regarding bedform trend were tested experimentally in bidirectional flows by rotating a sand-covered board in steady winds. Transverse, oblique, and longitudinal bedforms were created by changing only two parameters: the angle between the two winds and the proportions of sand transported in the two directions. Regardless of whether the experimental bedforms were transverse, oblique, or longitudinal (as defined by the bedform trend relative to the resultant transport direction), they all had trends that yielded the maximum gross transport across the bedforms. The fact that many of the experimental bedforms were neither transverse nor parallel to the resultant transport direction suggests that transport directions cannot be accurately determined by presuming such alignment.

Submitted on December 19, 1986
Accepted on April 15, 1987


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The study of desert dunes in Australia.
C. R. Twidale (2008)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 301, 215-239
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Late Pleistocene and Holocene dune activity and wind regimes in the western Sahara Desert of Mauritania.
(2002)
Geology 30, 991-994
Determination of Paleocurrent Direction from Oblique Sections of Trough Cross-Stratification--A Precise Approach.
(2002)
Journal of Sedimentary Research 72, 217-219
Complexity in Natural Landform Patterns.
B. T. Werner (1999)
Science 284, 102-104
   Abstract »    Full Text »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)